the mission in paris was leaderless. someone needed to take over. >> he immediately starts kind of establishing himself as a leader within the church because there's a vacuum. >> those closest to him say the experience had changed him. >> and he made a commitment to himself to work as hard. and i think part of that comes from that experience of going overseas and seeing other people, and having life-threatening experiences and deciding that you're going to-what you're going to make out of your life. and he decided he wanted to make the most he could out of his life, and worked as hard as he possibly could to do that. >> in 1981 barack obama came east to engage the world. especially the black world. he started by moving to the edge of harlem. >> well, if we wanted things to be harder for ourselves, we succeeded wonderfully. it was kind of a gritty neighborhood. the apartment next door to us on the third floor was burned out and stayed that way the whole time that we lived there. we had, like, five locks on the door, inclu